Plant management for the wind energy industry
Economics, availability and energy yield are only a few of the criteria that are hot topics in wind energy system operation. As well as efficient wind park operational management, continuous inspections and status-dependent control of maintenance and refurbishment of wind turbines are necessary to build and run wind parks efficiently.
Triggered by bursts of faults and drop-outs, and supported by insurer's activities (revision clauses), status monitoring systems have been increasing in popularity in the wind energy generation sector for several years. An effective servicing organisation is another effective tool for optimising operation and uptime of wind parks from the economics criteria point of view.
This also particularly applies to certain specific requirements:
- Not the optimal technical wind location
- Rejuvenation of obsolete plant
- The setting up and operating of future offshore wind parks
In close cooperation with Overspeed GmbH of Oldenburg, the ALM system was extended with zedas®asset to form a powerful wind park management system. The uppermost goal of the wind park management system is maximum availability and thus maximum energy yield of the wind energy plant.
As well as the operational optimisation that can now be achieved, there now exists a meaningful database that permits detailed analysis of the behaviour of the plant while taking individual operating conditions into account, while at the same time enabling further development of the wind energy plant.
Servicing as an added-value factor
Servicing is part of the company's added-value chain and creates measurable value in terms of provision of replacement provision and availability. Servicing concepts and strategies that fit the production process and are status-oriented and predictive are needed more than ever today. Particularly since "the costs for servicing that is not carried out or is carried out in unsatisfactory fashion is 3 to 5 times higher than direct servicing costs are estimated to be". (Source: H. Neuhaus at the 12th University of Dortmund Servicing Forum, 16 - 17.03.2007)
zedas®asset efficiently supports this process with a central database, powerful functions to structure and use customer- and application-specific knowledge bases and a homogeneous and easy-to-use user interface. Results obtained by customers show that intensive scrutiny of the servicing process can bring potential savings of between 5 and 30% depending on the type of plant.
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